Preppers be crazy, but I do like guns

[inverarity]

When the world ends, an underground 1-bedroom apartment and a 10-year supply of beans will totally justify devoting your life to end-times paranoia.

So I am now working on a new OF novel. (No, sorry, no good news about my SF novel. One agent was interested but ultimately passed, so I think it's going in the trunk for now.) It's a post-apocalyptic. Old school. What can I say, first I wrote a Heinleinesque teen space adventure, now I am writing my own version of The Stand. Never let it be said my writing is guided by commercial viability or original ideas. :P

(No, not thinking of self-publishing at this time. If I was gonna just see how many self-published ebooks I could sell, I'd adopt a new pseudonym and write M/M were-dinosaur erotica.)

So, anyway, survival in the post-apocalypse. My new book gives me an excuse to indulge in wasting more time reading crazy people ranting on the Internetresearch.

Now and then I acquire temporary odd obsessions/fascinations. Right now it is with the whole "prepper" subculture (what used to be called "survivalists"). Currently they are predicting the imminent collapse of Western civilization, hyperinflation of the U.S. Dollar, Peak Oil, Obama herding people into FEMA camps, and various combinations of EMPs, superstorms, nuclear meltdowns, and roving cannibal hordes. Not necessarily in that order.

Of course these subcultures have been predicting imminent catastrophe since at least the 60s. And remember all that Golden Age science fiction about nuclear families emerging from their suburban bomb shelters after the atomic war to survey a shattered, post-apocalyptic America?

The fears of these survivalists are somewhat based on real threats. People were legitimately afraid of nuclear war in the 50s, though they had seriously optimistic notions about how survivable an actual global thermonuclear war would be. And watching the economy now, I cannot say that I think predictions of hyperinflation and/or a Great Depression-level collapse are absolutely, completely absurd. I would rate the worst-case scenarios as "unlikely," but it would be foolish to assume that the dollar is going to be as strong in 20 years as it is now.

That said, it's one thing to stock a little extra food and water and maybe even some hard currency just in case your city's grid goes down in a catastrophe, and another to seriously prepare for The End of the World As We Know It.

Doomsday Bunkers is a "reality show" that is not really that interesting — it's about a company that builds bunkers and storage pods for preppers. The interesting part is not their prefab steel shipping containers that they basically turn into 1-bedroom apartments and bury in a hole in the ground; it's all the scared white people (it's almost all scared white people) spending massive amounts of money on remote threats. I mean, one lady spent $150,000 on an underground bunker with NBC air filters because she lives 15 miles from a nuclear power plant and is worried about a meltdown. If you are that worried about a meltdown, wouldn't it be cheaper just to move away from the power plant?

Other preppers were these guys trying to put on an Alpha Wolf display (at least on camera), thinking that some gym muscles and a shaved head made them look hard, while they growled about how they are totally gonna Protect Their Families and shoot anyone who tries to Take Their Stuff, yo. Did they actually train with any of those expensive, high-end guns they were waving around? Did they think about long-term survival in a world where they and their family have to retreat to an underground shipping container because starving hordes of people who want to Take Their Stuff are ransacking their property?

If you are preparing for a serious TEOTWAKI event, then nothing less than self-sufficiency and/or a community of like-minded people all preparing for the same thing will suffice. If you are a suburbanite or even someone with a rural bunker, I cannot think of a more miserable existence than hiding in a can breathing reprocessed air for years. What's even the point? These are people terrified by death, plagued by irrational fears.

This is what a prepper looks like.
Not always this rich, but almost always this white.

They would probably laugh at a Manhattanite "prepper" like Aviva Drescher:

“I bought body gear, really expensive body gear, like the kind used by the Army. I went online and researched gas masks. I bought a gas tent for my baby. I was so crazy that when I took my baby out, I would keep a gas mask in the stroller. I stocked up on Cipro,” she said. (Cipro is used to treat people exposed to anthrax.) “I bought a bunch of giant rafts to go down the East River. Though I know,” she sighed, “all the big shots will probably have private planes and helicopters.”

I mean, seriously, carrying around a gas mask just in case of a sudden nerve gas attack in Central Park? This is what we call "poor risk assessment." If you were to list all the possible threats to your baby, the probability of nerve gas is way, way, way lower than more mundane threats that would be mitigated by much more practical measures...

But as amusing as the notion of a Real Housewife of NYC hobbling about in high heels and body armor may be, fundamentally Ms. Drescher's thinking is no more irrational than all the other scared white people who don't know what to do in the event that their environment comes to resemble... well, much of the world today. Where the police are not your friends and not going to show up to protect you, and walking outside without being shot at is not a given, nor is the ready availability of food. Go to any inner city and you'll find a large number of people who live like that today, in America. Survival skills are not necessarily hiding in a bunker with a horde of firearms or carrying gas masks in case of a Tom Clancy novel.

They aren't all crazy and irrational, though. It's easy to see how they get caught up in that mindset.

I have been reading Jim Rawles's SurvivalBlog, and it's a combination of hard, practical common sense and survival tips for when shit seriously hits the fan (and knowledge and skills that are useful to have even if it doesn't), and raving moonbat goldbugs, fundies, and gun nuts. These are people buying real estate in the "American Redoubt" (generally, Montana/Idaho/North Dakota and thereabouts) because they expect both coasts and all major cities to become Somalia. In fairness, Rawles himself is sane and reasonable, even if I disagree with some of his conclusions and most of his premises, but you can feel the fear and paranoia oozing from some of his letter-writers.

Grab yo' guns, fucker! It's time to start shootin' librulz!

There is also a subset of the survivalist subculture that isn't just fearfully preparing for society to collapse, but eagerly anticipating it. From those who want to literally burn it to the ground to those who won't do anything to immanentize the eschaton themselves but just can't wait until they can start shooting the Democratsstarving hordes, there's a very creepy and heavily-armed fringe waiting to come out of the woodwork.

I call these people "Flaggians." It's akin to that famous cocktail party game about going Nazi — when the end of the world comes, who would join up with Randall Flagg? I have my thoughts on how you can predict who will be a wolf, who will be a sheep, and who will be a sheepdog.

In the meantime, I am working on zombie-proofing my house, and on my novel.

[Poll #1952528]

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I am sort of prepared, specifically prepared for an emergency elsewhere. I have a deployment kit for when/if the Guard send me off to help in disaster relief. Haven't prepared the whole family for disaster yet. Mostly because I'd like to prepare for high probability events such as my company folding or the kids going off to college than low probability TEOTWAKI.

[shortysc22.livejournal.com]

I'm moderately prepared, I can survive a few weeks, plus I have a few skills that will translate into the world without power. (I can farm and can my own vegetables).

I sort of noticed your trend based on the books you've been reading and I've enjoyed them, mostly because I've been reading the same ones and enjoy them. It's interesting to see each author's different perspective and I'd be curious to read yours if it was ever published.

The book I'm reading now is more of a look at why the US will collapse, called "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler. It is not a novel, it just takes facts and presents why the oil economy and suburbia America is destined to fail. It's an interesting take and also points out the flaws in consumer America. I'm curious to see what other books you'd recommend.

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

lol i recently took a quiz that said i'd survive two weeks after the aapocalypse, and i was like yep, sounds about right.

honestly though, if things went to shit so badly that we no longer have civilized things like electricity and running water and the internet, why would I WANT to work so hard to stay alive? Why spend years eating lame dried/canned food stores? Meh, I say, meh.

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

At least I won't have to worry about my student loans or my mortgage if the world ends.

I've always thought that sentiment on a shirt with a mushroom cloud would be humorous.

Sadly, on one level, I don't have much faith in our society lasting the century. I mean we've been able to destroy ourselves at least since 1945, but since then we've come up with all sorts new and interesting ways to destroy ourselves. It seems that the shoe will drop one way or another.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

That is, actually, the law demands that we have a first aid kit in the car and I do have an old pocket knife somewhere ... if I can find it and it isn't so rusty I can't open it anymore ...

Then of course I'm also not in America. ;)

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I have a multi-tool, and I can milk a goat!

[asulon-bellanca.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a useful skill. Maybe some better prepared nutcase would take pity and keep me around. I'm a farrier trimming and shoeing horses. That's useful right? I have a forge but it's propane. I didn't pay attention to the coal forge lecture :( oops. I guess growing and canning is good too.

EDIT I forgot a point about that whole Central North American Area they will flock to. It's not unreasonable to think the coasts will have a hard time because of a high population low food production issue. However if The End comes from Yellowstone they are going to be sad little puppies. That thought makes me smile

wat

[klaelman23.livejournal.com]

See now, I feel like the Preppers are mostly people acting out against a society and a world that they fear and don't understand. They don't like where things are going, and as a means of divorcing themselves from any sort of responsibility for where things are headed, they are prepared to abandon everything rather than struggle with the rest of us to try and make it better.

People like that disgust me. I can understand knowing how to forage and survive outdoors for a few weeks at a time, but to go so off the rails as to fortify yourself in steel and concrete and paranoia just pisses me off.

Of course, then there are those nutcases that are hoping to bring about the Second Coming and are not only prepared for the end of days, but are in Congress, doing everything they can to push things over the edge so they can see Jesus. Could you please not do that? Kthx.

~Klael

Re: wat

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

I am going to defend preppers to a point because bluntly looking at the future, I don't see the highly industialized, food from Chile, lets ignore global warming mindset and ignore any sense of responsibility to anything mindset kinda scary.

I say this as a person who has been involved in politics all my life and currently in California working on a campaign. Increasingly, I just don't see the will to face up to the world we are creating.

That doesn't mean a lot of preppers are aren't a bunch of wackjobs.

But if the larger society is going to act in a suicidal manner that will get either millions or billions killed in wars, ethnic tensions as they fight for the last scraps of arable land or clean water, when does it become your responsibility to withdraw and begin to work on 'Western Civilization 4.0' (or whatever number you think we're up to)?

And isn't that a reasonable question?

[indigo-mouse.livejournal.com]

Growing up on the prairies we always had several weeks worth of food in the house (blizzards). NoDak was not exactly the place to be, though. All those missiles on the SAC bases made it a very big target. I wonder if the preppers remember that?

I live in the middle of a big city in Arizona (bit gun rights state, you don't even have to have a concealed weapons permit to have a concealed weapon). So everyone will pretty much be running around waving their arsenal.

Water would be the biggest issue though... and if the TEOTWAWKI happens in the summer there will be lots and lots of heat stroke deaths before anything else happens.